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Video 8:07
Ambulance service

Catherine GarrettUpdated
Mon 19 Apr 2010, 1:56 PM AEST

Stateline goes on the road with an ACT ambulance crew ahead of the release of a review into the service.

Transcript

CATHERINE GARRETT, PRESENTER: First, though, Canberra's Ambulance Service. Its critics say the response time is too slow. Its workers say they're under too much pressure and struggling to cope, especially when major incidents hit. They say they need 50 more workers and two more vans.

The Lennox Review into the service has just been complete and handed to government. Minister Simon Corbell won't talk to us until those results are made public in May.

So, Stateline joined a crew this week to try and get behind the scenes and get a sense of the daily lives of Canberra's ambulance crews.

EMERGENCY PHONE OPERATOR: ACT ambulance, are you reporting an emergency?

STEVE MITCHELL, INTENSIVE CARE PARAMEDIC: We're certainly far busier than we have been in the past.

BEN SWEANEY, TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION: Underfunding for many years has led to the service really being on a knife's edge.

STEVE MITCHELL: We feel that additional resources are required on the front line to help us deliver the service we should be delivering to the community.

CATHERINE GARRETT: It's late in the day and the week, and veteran Canberra paramedic Steve Mitchell is well into his shift.

STEVE MITCHELL: So we've got a report of a single vehicle rollover of a low loader.

And there's information that there's a 50 year old male there injured, out in Macgregor.

CATHERINE GARRETT: This call out takes him to the other side of the city.

STEVE MITCHELL: On arrival, we should expect that the fire brigade will be there and the police will be there. And we've being responded as a closest available ambulance resource. But in the time we get there may well have been another crew which has cleared a job or been retasked from the com centre.

At this stage we don't know whether the driver is trapped, or how severely injured the driver of the vehicle is.

CATHERINE GARRETT: So you really just have to be prepared for anything?

STEVE MITCHELL: That's right. It's the nature of the work that you can't predict your shift. Then usually once you start your shift you just go from case to case.

CATHERINE GARRETT: This case presents a dramatic scene. But the driver of the heavy mover is OK.

STEVE MITCHELL: We're looking at concussion, not a loss of consciousness. He's had spinal precautions and there's no deficits so he's gone to Canberra (inaudible).

AMBULANCE OFFICER: Right excellent, thank you.

STEVE MITCHELL: The job itself is unpredictable so you're not quite sure what the next call is going to be. You need to be focussed when you are on your way to a case, thinking about the situations what it might unfold when you get there. You're thinking about before entering the premises is it safe do so, are there any dangers, what additional resources you might need to call to do the job.

CATHERINE GARRETT: Back in case at Dickson, it's shift change over time.

PARAMEDIC: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight it makes it nine. Are you happy to sign for drugs?

PARAMEDIC: Yep happy to sign the drugs.

STEVE MITCHELL: When you start your shift you can expect a call pretty much straight away and you will be going to case to case.

CATHERINE GARRETT: And while ambulance staff know that's the job, those inside say the service is under strain as demand stretches current operational levels.

STEVE MITCHELL: We want to continue to provide a high level of service to the community and I'd like the community to have confidence in the service that we deliver, but we feel that we could better do that if we had additional resources.

BEN SWEANEY: Our members have lobbied successive governments over many years crying out for an increase in resources across the service. As demand by the Government's own figures for ambulance services has an increase of 10% per annum the resource has simply not kept pace, which has meant we're continually behind the eight ball.

PARAMEDIC: What we're going to do now is make sure everything is OK.

PARAMEDIC: So if you can straighten out one of the fingers on your right arm.

BEN SWEANEY: And a plan needs to be put so into place to meet the ever increasing demand for ambulance resources.

CATHERINE GARRETT: And is that plan the Lennox Review?

BEN SWEANEY: We certainly hope the Lennox Review will go some way to addressing the pressures being faced by the ACT Ambulance Service. We know it won't be the silver bullet providing all the answers. The plan we expect will make recommendations on increasing staffing levels, increasing front line resources such as vehicles and equipment and we'd also like to see a strategic plan for Ambulance Service.

CATHERINE GARRETT: The union says last year's Auditor General's report into the Ambulance Service highlighted these issues and called for better transparency and clinical governance.

Minister responsible, Simon Corbell, then agreed to the external review. It has received submissions from the Ambulance Service, the union and Department of Justice and Community Safety.

So what do you think needs to be fixed at the moment?

STEVE MITCHELL: I think the underlying issue is that the growth in demand for ambulance services hasn't been matched by funding to adequately staff and run the roster.

The Canberra community enjoy the only Ambulance Service where when they call for an ambulance they're guaranteed an intensive care paramedic will turn up every time.

CATHERINE GARRETT: Recent wins for ambulance staff have included a pay rise and action on welfare and support services.

A positive direction, say those who spoke with Stateline.

BEN SWEANEY: The members are concerned that this is the last chance to get it right. The Lennox Review, we believe, will make significant recommendations to better resourcing the service. If it doesn't, we will be very concerned.

CATHERINE GARRETT: With its release, does emergency services Minister Simon Corbell have a duty of care to act on any recommendations from the review for the safety of the Canberra community and ACT ambulance employees?

BEN SWEANEY: We believe that the Minister must act on the recommendations of the report.

STEVE MITCHELL: The concern we have is how do we manage delivering the service to the community when there's such a high demand on our service? It puts pressures on every aspect of the service, from the communications centre that have to triage the calls and decide which call has to get the highest priority and quite often cars which have been allocated to a particular call will have to be diverted to a more urgent call.

EMERGENCY PHONE OPERATOR: ACT ambulance, are you reporting an emergency?

CATHERINE GARRETT: The night's next job involves a teenager reacting poorly to an anaesthetic.

And Steve Mitchell is back on the road.

BEN SWEANEY: We're on a knife's edge. We have this opportunity with the Lennox Review and the coming budgets to ensure that we don't go over. But this is in our members' opinion the one opportunity to get it right into the future.

CATHERINE GARRETT: So would you say the next two weeks with the release of the Lennox Review would be a real critical turning point in the life of the ACT Ambulance Service?

STEVE MITCHELL: We really are at a watershed moment. We need to ensure that the Lennox Review receives the support from the assembly, from Treasury and from the community.

I just want the community to be assured that we do have a motivated work force that want to deliver the best possible patient care that we can and certainly what would help us do that is additional resourcing.